Just three weeks before Donald Trump is inaugurated for a second term as president, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un said his nation plans to engage in the “toughest” anti-U.S. policy to date. The aggressive tone follows years of Trump coddling the rogue nuclear state, breaking with the approach of previous Democratic and Republican administrations.
At a meeting of the Workers’ Party, which is the sole political party in North Korea, Kim called the U.S. “the most reactionary state that regards anti-communism as its invariable state policy” and slammed America’s alliance with South Korea and Japan.
North Korea’s state news agency said Kim’s speech laid out a “strategy for the toughest anti-U.S. counteraction to be launched aggressively.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un exchange documents during a signing ceremony marking a new partnership in Pyongyang, North Korea, on June 19, 2024.
Kim’s comments come a few weeks after he slammed the U.S. under President Joe Biden for backing Ukraine against Russia’s invasion. Kim has cozied up with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine war and sent 10,000 troops to help Russia fight against Ukrainian forces.
Trump said earlier this year that North Korea “misses” him, echoing his longtime coddling of the closed-off dictatorship. When he was president, Trump broke from U.S. tradition and engaged in face-to-face meetings with Kim, posed for pictures with him, saluted his generals, and wrote so-called “love letters” to the leader of the regime that deprives its citizens of basic rights.
In addition to North Korean leadership undermining human rights for decades, the nation has continued to develop nuclear capability and used tests of its military weaponry to threaten democratic nations in the Pacific region like South Korea and Japan. The actions have made North Korea into an international pariah that is shunned by most of the world, except for its ties to Russia and China—and Donald Trump.
In contrast to Trump’s openness to the rogue country, President Barack Obama referred to North Korea in 2014 as a “pariah state that starves its people” and made clear that under his administration, America would defend its regional allies against North Korean aggression.
Trump’s embrace of the dictator allowed North Korea to claim a propaganda coup, hailing the meeting of the two leaders as “historic” in 2018. Trump has expressed admiration for a host of similarly authoritarian leaders, including Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Hungary’s Viktor Orban.
After Biden defeated Trump in 2020, U.S. policy moved to a more traditional role in opposition to North Korea. Biden hosted South Korea’s president at the White House last year for a state visit and said, “Look, a nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its allies … or partners is unacceptable and will result in the end of whatever regime to take such an action.”
Trump’s love-letter diplomacy did little to decrease North Korea’s hostility to democratic nations, and whether his second turn as president will once again bolster Kim’s global standing remains an open question.
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